Oxford Playhouse
Oxford's leading producing theatre — founded 1923, in its Beaumont Street home since 1938, a Grade II* art-deco auditorium of around 660 seats programming new writing, dance and family work.
The Oxford Playhouse is the city's principal producing theatre. It was founded in 1923 by J.B. Fagan as the Red Barn on Woodstock Road — a converted "big-game museum" with a corrugated-iron roof — before moving to its current home on Beaumont Street in 1938. The new building was designed by Edward Maufe with Francis Chancellor, in a restrained art-deco-meets-Georgian idiom that complements the Ashmolean opposite. It is Grade II* listed.
The auditorium seats around 660 across stalls and a single circle. The Playhouse runs as a registered charity (no. 900039) and operates on a freehold owned by St John's College. The Playhouse Trust took over the building in 1991 after a period of closure.
What's on
Programming mixes in-house productions with carefully curated visiting work: new writing from companies like Out of Joint and Headlong, contemporary dance from Rambert and Akram Khan Company, jazz, family theatre, and an annual Christmas show that is a serious alternative to the New Theatre pantomime. The Playhouse runs a substantial education and outreach programme, and is the visiting home for the Royal Shakespeare Company when they tour Oxford.
The Playhouse also operates the Burton Taylor Studio around the corner on Gloucester Street — a 50-seat black box used heavily by student companies including OUDS.
Visiting
The front-of-house bar opens an hour before performance, with food served from late afternoon. Concessions, under-26 tickets and student rates make this one of the better-value serious theatres in the south of England. Beaumont Street is a five-minute walk from the train station; on foot from Carfax it is six or seven minutes via George Street and Magdalen Street.
Founding date and Red Barn origin, architects, listing grade and charity number from the Wikipedia article and the Playhouse's own About page. Burton Taylor Studio relationship from the Playhouse history page.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
